Education reporter

Some new machines just arrived in three Clarke County schools, but they’ve already got teachers and students burning with curiosity.

“The kids are just abuzz,” said Hilsman Middle School media specialist Leslie Gonzalez said of the 3D printers delivered last week.

The printers aren’t like ordinary printers, of course. They can actually make objects out of a corn-based polymer using a process called additive manufacturing.

Barrow Elementary School media specialist Andy Plemmons was the first to get one of the MakerBot machines last week. Stroud Elementary media specialist Shannon Thompson also got one for his school.

After Plemmons got Barrow’s printer up and running, the machine was the talk of the school.

“Pretty good,” understated fifth-grader Stantrez Hall last Friday as he watched the machine make a hair comb.

“I want one,” said classmate Caleb Brownlee.

The software for the printer is complicated, but the machine itself isn’t so much.

It draws a string of polymer off a spool into a small chamber attached to a nozzle. The polymer is heated and melts, and the melted polymer squirts out of a tiny nozzle. As the polymer comes out, the nozzle moves quickly back and forth over a small, flat table, continuously depositing a thin layer.

As the nozzle moves, it adds more and more layers until it’s finally built an object, such as a comb, a shark-shaped clip, or even a chain.

As of last week, the machine had only made objects it was pre-programmed to print, Plemmons said.

But before long, the printers will be turning out much more than little chains and combs.

Teachers and students are already coming up with ideas for how the machines can be used for school projects.

“We can make all sorts of 3D models from a printer. I think it would be fun to print parts of a science project,” said third-grader Lucy Rentz. “For example, you could print a planet if you were making a solar system. I’m amazed that it can print chains that are automatically connected together.”

Fellow third-grader Natalie Soper also pondered the possibilities.

“I think it’s cool for us to see how new technology works,” she said. “I’m hoping that we can create things that a normal printer can’t create.”

The day after the printer arrived, one of the students helping with school holiday decorations came to Plemmons.

“We need a menorah,” she said. “Can you make a menorah for Hanukkah?”

Hilsman’s chess club will participate in one of the first 3D projects in their school, Gonzalez said, by designing and making a chess set whose pieces are panthers, the school’s mascot.

The schools’ art teacher is also thinking of ways students can use the printer, as are students wishing to take a design or project beyond the paper-and-pencil phase, Plemmons said.

“With this, you can just take it all the way,” Plemmons said.

Gonzalez has asked teachers at Hilsman to think about how they can use the machine in an interdisciplinary way.

“We want kids to end up creating something that represents what they’re learning,” she said.

Software designed for youngsters makes it possible even for elementary school students to design objects for 3D printing, Gonzalez said.

In fact, Barrow third-grader Grant St. Onge last week was designing a gem for the machine to print as his class studied rocks, gems and minerals.

The schools got their new MakerBot printers at no charge to the school district.

The company set a goal to get its printers into schools and is participating in a program to help schools raise the money to buy its machines.

The company signed up corporate sponsors who promised to match money raised in the local community, and also chipped in by reducing the price of the printers.

Plemmons used Facebook and Twitter to solicit donations, and also went to Barrow’s parent group. He had no trouble raising the matching funds; one anonymous donor gave $400.

Like Plemmons and Thompson, Gonzalez wasted no time in going after one of the printers when she learned how she could do it.

“Normally, I have a 10-page proposal,” Gonzales said. “With this, I thought, ‘I need to jump on this right now.’”